OK…we’ve officially gone off the rails. We’ve gone from “the Church is evil” to “Catholics are stupid.”
See ya.
Guin your great uncle sounds like the kinda guy I would like to know.
He’s not my uncle – he’s more like a third or fourth cousin. I’ve actually only met him maybe once or twice.
But yeah, I’d love to visit his church one of these days.
I wouldn’t say adults believing in fairy stories and magic are stupid. Ignorant maybe but not stupid.
While certainly I’m not interested in defending child molesters, or the way the Church has handled this situation, I wanted to clear up a misunderstanding that I think some people have about funding. Most parishes, such as mine, are completely self-funded. They don’t get money from the organization at large, and money from the regular collections don’t go upstream, either. There are separate collections for that which parishoners may choose to give to or not, without harming their actual parish. So supporting your parish doesn’t mean you are supporting the larger institution, it means that you are ensuring that people in your parish have access to the Sacraments. Also, if you give money to local Catholic charities (small “c,” I’m not necessarily referring to a large organizations such as The Catholic Charities, those money and/or goods will stay local and go nearly directly to helping those in need.
Speaking as an ex-Catholic, it abused all of our trust by aiding and abetting the known pedophiles among its ranks.
Awesome. That sounds like a church I would love to attend. I liked how the website emphasized that everyone present for services can participate in Holy Communion. One of my biggest problems with the Catholic church (in addition to the higher-ups covering up for sexual abuse, which is disgusting) is that it’s so damned exclusive. I was baptized in the church, attended Catholic school from pre-school to the 12th grade, and received every sacrament up to Confirmation. According to the Catholic church, however, I am not allowed to participate in Holy Communion since I was married outside the church. My Protestant husband and I tried to go the traditional Catholic wedding route (mostly to please my mom), but my husband was turned off by the exclusivity of the church and the fact that the priest was a pompous ass. Where does some celibate guy who has never been married get off telling us what married life is going to be like?
Long story short, we ended up having a beautiful wedding in the library of a local hotel resort performed by a gasp Baptist minister. The minister did a wonderful job of welcoming and including everyone who attended the ceremony. If some of my traditional Catholic relatives were scandalized by our non-denominational wedding ceremony, I never heard anything about it.
I could go on and on about this subject. I’ve met some wonderful priests and experienced some beautiful, spiritual moments in the Catholic church. There’s a lot of things I disagree with the Church about, however - abortion, gay rights, birth control, priests not being allowed to marry, the lack of leadership opportunities for women in the church, the cover-up of sexual abuse, the way the word of the Pope is considered to be the word of God, just to name a few. When it comes down to it, there are just too many problems I have with the church to be able to continue calling myself Catholic. Sorry, mom. 
Just out of idle curiosity, how many of those coaches were protected from any legal or civil ramifications by the Soccer league and quietly transfered to coach other teams? If you answer is not “All of them” then your analogy does not hold. Yes, other authority figures abuse children. The problem with the Catholic Church is that it protected the abusers and allowed them multiple opportunites to continue thier abuses. If the Church had properly dealt with these issues when they first happened the Church leaders would be held as heroes.
Don’t forget that many of the children and young people who were abused were in no position to fight back or speak out. Many of the abused were inmates of the Magdalene Asylums or reform schools run by the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy. If they did attempt to speak out, they were ignored or not believed because of their breeding, background or previous crimes (real or perceived).
The Catholic Church in Ireland has much to answer for, and it appears that thanks to the successful lawsuit brought by the Christian Brothers, the perpetrators will never be brought to justice- indeed, the lawsuit specified that the priests and others couldn’t even be named in the report.
Horrifying.
Fine, ignore that completely, then - the rank and file are certainly, if not stupid, at least somewhat culpable for continuing to go along with a religion that abuses children and then covers it up without demanding accountability. If I was a member of an organization that systematically shuffled abusers around without taking punitive action, I think I’d at least question how I could continue giving them my time and money (though in reality, I imagine I’d go farther and quit the organization while denouncing it loudly).
You didn’t denigrate Catholics because of their inactions; you denigrated them because of their doctrinal beliefs, which you called “patently absurd”. There’s a difference.
I’m assuming the same patently absurd doctrinal beliefs are what keep them from leaving/denouncing the corrupt church in the first place. I don’t see why painting them as evil pro-pedophilia types is better than believing in stupid bullshit as a reason for their behavior.
Meh. I guess that makes a little difference. But still, if you were sufficiently outraged that you decided never to give another penny to any fund that could conceivably be used to fund child molesters, why are you still attending a Catholic Church at all?
Do you donate to funds that help fund the Vatican, or church hierarchy outside your parish? If not, is it because of the sex scandals?
That’s a really stupid assumption.
Because one is (to put it in more reality-based terms) enablement and turning a blind eye to criminal behavior. (No one is “pro-pedophilia”, outside NAMBLA and other abusers). The other is…belief. Lots of people believe lots of things. Statistically speaking, virtually none of those people are criminals.
You have to understand something about Catholic doctrine. You can’t receive the Catholic sacraments anywhere else. And I think I can be sufficiently certain that my donations go right to my parish…they publish the budget every year.
No, I don’t, and never have. It’s mostly philosophical on my part in terms of wanting my disposble charity money to go to the needy. But of course, this gives added incentive.
I am amazed that the Christian Brothers successfully sued to keep the report from naming names. It is as if they are not ashamed at all for what their institution has done and are still trying to cover it all up. They really look out for their own, that is for sure.
“Sisters of Mercy” and “Christian Brothers” indeed. Disgusting.
Funny how we’re “off the rails” when I bring up doctrinal stupidity, but you have no trouble throwing the term around when it’s not your ox being gored. Tell me, exactly, why you think allegedly reasonable people let this shit slide, if it has nothing to do with their religious beliefs? General apathy? Certainly nothing to do with indoctrination or dogma.
Nope. Just criminal enablers. How proud they must be of that distinction.
After the criminal excesses of the Bush Administration, why are you still an American?
Not only that, but they had much more fodder for blackmail – ostensibly, kids weren;t worried about getting kicked off a team (though they could threaten to put them on the street) or becoming pariahs in their neighborhoods, they were worried about their and their loved ones’ fates in the afterlife. That is a hell of a lot of power to abuse.
Yes, there’s an equivalence. Except for the fact that citizenship, to a large degree, is not voluntary, and I never supported Bush nor was I a member of any organization that did, and I denounced his actions at every step, and gave time and money to those opposing him, the parallels are startling.